Calypso Outward Bound
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Calypso Outward Bound
Book 2 of The Gravida 2 Saga
By D. G. Hervey
Copyright © 2019
D. G. Hervey
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Jupiter
Chapter 2 - Government and Business
Chapter 3 - Getting Involved
Chapter 4 - Sworn In
Chapter 5 - Readying the Fleet
Chapter 6 - Pod Sweet Pod
Chapter 7 - Priorities
Chapter 8 - Doctors’ Visit
Chapter 9 - In ‘Retirement’ - Jon: Like Voltaire’s Candide
Chapter 10 - Fleet Personnel Management
Chapter 11 - Training and Spending
Chapter 12 - Nascent Cabinet Meeting
Chapter 13 - Birth-Support Preparations
Chapter 14 - Party
Chapter 15 - Birth
Appendix A - Character Information
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
For over a score of years, I have thought about how humanity must leave the Solar System to survive as a species. I believe that we homo sapiens will have to establish ourselves about other star systems to achieve this goal, to avoid the heretofore inevitable fate of Earth-based life - eventual extinction.
Notions of the benefits of traveling faster than the speed of light permeate science fiction, but I don’t want to trust the destiny of humanity to its questionable development and implementation. I envision traveling at speeds well below the speed of light to stars that are in the vicinity of our sun. Such a voyage will take many years, perhaps more than a lifetime. Who can psychologically withstand such a duration? How many people should start out on such a journey? What are the prospects for maintaining the good, healthful genetic diversity of a colony? What plants and animals are essential to the success of such an endeavor?
If the journey is going to require about a lifetime, most of those who settle about a different star will have been born during the journey, never experiencing existence on the surface of a planet. Will they elect to try to live on the surface of a different planet, no matter how acceptable that environment might seem to those who initially left the Solar System?
How can a group of colonists achieve the technological development to which they will aspire by the end of their journey? For example, I would not want to live now with only the medical technology of a century ago. How far behind Earth’s progress will such an expedition lag?
The stories of Calypso, The Gravida 2 Saga, generally provide my responses to these questions. I view the books as presenting two stories. The primary story is about a selected group of individuals, within the unique society of a large spaceship, venturing forth from the Solar System. Clearly the colonists should have some special qualifications. Nonetheless, they are basically a group from around the globe, reared on a planet’s surface, accustomed to the various cultures where they grew up.
The second story line, which begins in earnest in this second book of the saga, Calypso Outward Bound, highlights the effort of the group to sustain technological development. I have endeavored to include accurate science and some futuristic technologies which I expect may be achieved by the time humanity reaches for the stars.
Introduction
With a failed attempt to have the departure from the asteroid belt be a secret, the spaceship Calypso is heading past Jupiter, leaving the solar system on a journey that is expected to take more than a lifetime. There are slightly more than seven hundred young adult, educated, fertile women aboard Calypso who expect to bear the children, initially all girls, who will establish the first colony about another star, a gravida two for humanity.
Almost a fifth of the women have been artificially inseminated by resident doctors, using sperm from a genetically diverse sperm bank aboard the spaceship. There have been no births yet; now they are much anticipated. The other eighty percent of the young women await their opportunity to choose a donor from the sperm bank so they may similarly be artificially inseminated. All of the women expect a three-year interval between bearing a child. Each of the young women colonists was screened, selected, and recruited by ML, the richest, most powerful person in the Solar System. She conceived and secretly managed the creation of Calypso.
When passing Mars on its journey from Earth to Calypso, ML’s Spaceship 1 was attacked by an unidentified adversary. Spaceship 1 made stops at two of her company’s C Developments in the asteroid belt. There employees disembarked and supplies were loaded onto Spaceship 1.
After Spaceship 1 reached Calypso, the adversary attacked again. ML’s insightful responses prevented the attacks from doing significant harm to the passengers or her fleet.
To protect the inhabited C Developments she owns, the primary basis of her wealth, ML left Calypso to return to them. Upon that departure, she did not anticipate being able to rejoin Calypso after its gain of speed when passing Jupiter. She no longer expected to get to live her dream and be present for the establishment of an extra-solar-system colony, humanity’s first.
The women of Calypso wanted a father figure aboard - the only adult male their daughters might get to know as they grow up. They chose a retired loving couple, Jon and Marie, to accompany them. Jon met ML’s requirement of not being able to father offspring of his own, thus ensuring that there would be ML’s intended level of genetic diversity of Calypso’s generations of people yet to be born.
ML recruited Jon and Marie, who had retired on a small farm in Houston County near Crockett, Texas. Marie uncharacteristically made the snap decision to assent to ML’s proposal. ML transported them to Calypso aboard her Spaceship 1 piloted by Captain Fran.
As ML was about to leave Calypso, she paid Jon and Marie for the property she had them hurriedly leave behind and give away in Texas. Thus, Jon and Marie became the wealthiest individuals aboard Calypso.
As she would not accompany them out of the solar system, ML transferred ownership of Calypso. This included the structure, its infrastructure, and all of its attendant scout spaceships. Most of it she gave to the newly formed government, but the living spaces she gave to the colonists who were already living in them.
ML had Jon draft a constitution for a republic during their trip from Earth to Calypso. Once there, the colonists approved it and then elected Agnieszka to be their first president. Agnieszka had been ML’s executive in charge of Calypso once the development was habitable.
To get a start on profit-motivated capitalism, Agnieszka suggested to Jon and Marie that they should support entrepreneurs who were interested in starting their own businesses. This led to Jon and Marie getting quite a few proposals for businesses. They were always on the board of directors of any enterprise to which they provided financial startup capital. That way they expected to get to know a number of the women.
The front half of Calypso consists of twin, counter-rotating cylinders, named Subtle and Hidden, three kilometers across and ten kilometers long. The third deck of Subtle and Hidden, with the residential pods, provides simulated one-G, Earth-normal gravity that is created by their rotation. The back half of Calypso behind the living spaces is a rigidly attached, similarly sized trailer with asteroids to be mined. It also provides structural support for the ion-thrusters that accelerate Calypso virtually continuously. The trailer has its separate power plant and complete database.
Jon and Marie live in a pod in Subtle with six young women. Each pod has its own, large common room with adjoining living spaces for each woman’s anticipated family. Privacy is almost non-existent, since the living and working spaces of Calypso have monitors in every room. Pictures and sound are recorded conti
nuously in the facility’s databases. They are monitored by artificial intelligence (AI) in real time, to ensure no rogue individual takes action that might endanger Calypso. Anyone aboard can pay to see any camera’s view at any time.
All of the databases are continuously updated with the information that Earth shares with its solar-system developments. There are three databases on Calypso and one on each of the two staffed scout spaceships, Ek and Dui. Earth’s updates are forwarded to Calypso and augmented by ML.
All of the young women use a Parrot, an electronic device with an ear bud that is in constant communication with a cylinder’s database. Jon and Marie choose not to have a Parrot. To permit confidential work, at the president’s discretion, output of the monitors in Calypso’s governmental offices on the third deck may go unrecorded in the facilities’ databases; when this is the case, the women are not permitted to have a Parrot inside those offices.
Chapter 1 - Jupiter
Jon and Marie were in their pod’s common room when one of their pod-mates, Haley, came rushing in.
“Since you don’t use a Parrot, you don’t know ML has left,” she informed, “and this time it seems there is no chance of her ever returning. She’s by herself in her new Spaceship 1 on a different trajectory passing Jupiter.”
Marie commented, “She has certainly done enough for everyone here.”
“ML feels responsible for her C Developments,” Jon explained. “No doubt they can use her foresight, leadership, and protection. She is doing what she felt duty-bound to do, instead of going off on this adventure to pursue her dream.”
Haley reflected, “I just hope that we don’t need further protection that only she could provide.”
“If she thought it likely that we would be the ones most needing her unique insightful protection,” responded Jon, “I expect that she would still be aboard Calypso. Her departure is the surest indication to me that she feels we are now beyond the direct reach of her adversary, whoever that may be.”
-
The crew navigating Calypso was intending to coast to pick up speed in the sling-shot maneuver going by Jupiter and its moons, Ganymede and Calisto. The idea was to be on the correct trajectory as they approached the planet and not to rely on continuous operation of the ion thrusters during the pass by Jupiter. Their concern was that the radiation of Jupiter might cause a malfunction of one or more of the ion thrusters and cause Calypso not to be headed in exactly the correct direction.
-
Fran, no longer the captain of the spaceship ML was in, but feeling a camaraderie with those piloting this large spaceship Calypso, decided to visit the Subtle bridge. To her that bridge was spacious. On duty there were Captain Simona, Lieutenant Garbine, and Lieutenant Elina.
Fran asked, “How are the radiation levels?”
Lieutenant Elina responded, “Growing about as expected. No overloads anywhere. Everything is well battened down.”
“Fran,” Captain Simona asked, “do you intend to apply to be one of the captains of Subtle’s manned spaceship Ek, or its twin, Hidden’s Dui? It would be just like going home for you, excepting that ML wouldn’t be aboard.”
“It is tempting,” replied Fran. “Of course the spaceship you now call Dui has been my home for most of my career in space. Her AI and I know each other well. But then I’d be a government employee and unable to fulfill my elected position as a Taxer. I’ll be glad to take a mission, if there is a need. I’d probably want to do it gratis. But, if someone were to hire me as a private trainer, then I guess I wouldn’t be a government employee. So far no one has asked for private lessons.”
Lieutenant Garbine remarked, “Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen, Fran.”
“I don’t know,” Captain Simona retorted. “Some of those slated to be school teachers for children not born yet aren’t finding their - what shall I call it - busy work, to be all they hoped it might be. Secretarial work, clerical work, database research, or creative writing are not everyone’s cup of tea. I think, until there are children to teach, some of them would be delighted to take positions in the fleet. We are all eagerly looking forward to Calypso’s first births, none more so than the teachers. Some ships are run by bots and some have women in command. I won’t be surprised if Fran gets a lot of interest from some women wanting to hire her. What better training could a neophyte get?”
“Xis is on the intercom,” reported Lieutenant Elina. “I’ll put her on speaker. Xis, what’s up in the astronomy department, that you’ve called the bridge?”
“We have a problem,” Xis announced. “My duty at the moment is solar observation. My coronagraph just showed a big bubble blooming out and encircling the sun. That means that a coronal mass ejection, CME for short, is headed straight toward us. No spaceship has ever been in Jupiter’s radiation zone when a CME hit. We don’t know how big this one is, and we have no history to go on regarding how bad things can get. But, it is a fast one, about 3200 kilometers per second, so it probably is big. This means that it will be here in less than three days, just as we are about to enter Jupiter’s highest radiation zone.”
Captain Simona responded, “Thanks for the quick heads up, Xis. We have already done what we can by way of shielding the fixed electronics. I guess we will need for all bots to take the best cover they can. Be sure to send a laser message to ML. She may not have noticed the problem yet. And Marie, with her pacemaker, should be in a safe place. But we can’t do anything at all about the bots on that trailing iron-nickel asteroid that ML and Fran got for us. Those bots are stuck there, rather exposed, until we are past Jupiter. I wonder if four of them could constitute a shield for the fifth. No doubt, they’ll do the best they can.”
“The four bots from Calypso now know, of course,” Fran informed, “and they will do what they figure is best. When the time comes, I’ll go be with Marie.”
“Lieutenant Elina,” ordered Captain Simona, “shut down all electronic systems that we should be able to do without. That might save some of our external sensors. Be sure to shut down any redundant external sensor and give priority to shutting down those where our magnetic field tends to funnel the charged particles, namely Calypso’s north and south poles.”
Lieutenant Elina replied, “Yes, Captain. And ML responds with her thanks.”
-
Two days later Fran asked her Parrot, “Is Marie in her quarters?”
The Parrot whispered that she is.
Still to her Parrot, Fran directed, “Be sure the bot that tends to her pod is aware that Marie needs to stay there.”
Her Parrot informed her the bot knows.
Fran decided that she might just as well go keep Marie company.
-
When Fran got to Marie’s quarters, she was surprised to find Doctor Klomp already there.
Fran asked, “Is there anything wrong with Marie, Dr. Klomp?”
“I have visited with Marie as her cardiologist,” responded Dr. Klomp. “She is the only person aboard with a pacemaker. Just in case all this radiation messes that device up somehow, there is a defibrillator here. I am trained in its use. So I am just being extra cautious.”
“You are both so thoughtful to come to look after me,” Marie commented. “What is happening that you feel the need to do so?”
“We are in Jupiter’s radiation zone,” Fran responded, “and are a bit over an hour away from having a solar storm added to it.”
Jon remarked, “But on this deck all the walls, the floor, and the ceiling are of magnetizable steel. No radiation from Jupiter or the sun should be able to harm us in here. But how about ML? Is she informed?”
Captain Fran responded, “She has been informed.”
“So let’s stay in this nice safe place,” Fran suggested. “Do you have any games we could play?”
Jon asked, “Have you ever heard of the game, Texas Forty-two? We have some dominoes. Set aside your Parrots so we can have a fair game.”
-
On the brid
ge Lieutenant Garbine announced, “It is about time for the CME to arrive.”
“Yes,” responded Lieutenant Elina, “it just hit. Sensors for the reactor for the mining operations of the rocky asteroid are down. In fact it looks like about half of our operating external sensors are dead. Oh my, we have lost our magnet’s circuit, the magnetic shield is gone.”
Captain Simona concluded, “There is nothing to be done about any of the sensors until we are past Jupiter. But, after the CME has passed, we should see if we have functional bots from among those designed to install the coil of wire between the inner steel hull and the outer non-magnetic hull. If they can find the problem and fix it, it will minimize any further damage from Jupiter’s radiation.”
Just then most of the lights in the bridge went out. Only what were connected to the uninterruptible power supply were still illuminated.
“It gets worse,” Captain Simona responded. “Now the reactor is off line and we are on battery reserve power. That will not last the full duration of our pass through Jupiter’s radiation zone. There is no telling whether the bots that would get the reactor back on line are operable and capable of doing that or not. It is a good thing that the com is on the uninterruptible power. Lieutenant Garbine, take charge of seeing to it that the reactor gets back on line. Get in touch with the women who know what to do, and be sure that no pregnant woman gets a dose of the reactor’s radiation when bringing it back up.”
“Captain,” Lieutenant Elina informed, “we have lost all four of the forward looking cameras and two of the ones looking to the rear.”
Captain Simona ordered, “Let me know of any lightning bolts picked up in the rear looking cameras. Do we still have capability to use radar ahead?”
“Yes,” answered Lieutenant Elina,”radar can still be functional. Activating it. Nothing that is large enough to register shows up close by, and any smaller stuff will impact and be captured by our impact absorbing shield.”
“We need that reactor back on line,” Captain Simona commented. “The double hull slows heat exchange, but active temperature control of our habitable space depends upon the functioning of our reactors.”